In my research, I investigate the way that language encodes the measurement of quantities--whether along a continuous dimension such as size, or of discrete units such as members of a set of objects or events--and what language learners and experienced language users know about this. The main topics I investigate include issues in word learning, gradable adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, measure phrases, and comparatives. I alos have a separate line of research investigating the interaction of prosody, information structure, and syntax.

At the heart of my work is the intersection of formal linguistic theory and careful psycholinguistic experimentation. The questions that drive my research arise from theoretical claims about semantic representations, the syntax-semantics mapping, the language acquisition process, and how language and cognition interact.

I use a variety of methodologies, motivated by the topic under investigation and the ages of the participants in my studies. These include judgment and forced choice tasks, act-out tasks, preferential looking, analysis of speech, speech perception tasks, and reaction time measures.